It all began with a scarf. It was a simple gift from an ailing mother to her daughter, the writer Elizabeth Benedict, but over time the scarf became a symbol of their close and complex relationship. Benedict began to wonder whether other women had received similar presents from their own mothers, gifts that summed up their unique mother/daughter dynamics. The result is What My Mother Gave Me, a collection of essays by a wide range of women, including two who joined Benedict in conversation at Politics & Prose: Newsweek columnist and political commentator Eleanor Clift, and NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg.

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